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In the background, Meg’s father stopped pacing. She gave them both an unsteady smile. “You could have told me you were coming.”
“We wanted to surprise you,” her father said dryly.
Her mother took her by the elbows, gave her a long, hard look, then pulled her close. As Meg sank into that familiar embrace, she forgot for a moment that she was a full-grown woman. If only her parents were clueless and demanding, her life would be a lot less guilt-ridden, and she wouldn’t have to expend so much energy pretending she didn’t care about their good opinion.
She felt her mother’s hand in her hair. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
She swallowed her tears. “I’ve been better, but considering that train wreck you witnessed, I can’t complain.”
Her father took over the embrace, squeezing her tight, then giving her a light smack on the rear, just as he’d done since she was a little girl.
“Tell us everything,” her mother said when he finally let her go. “How did you get tangled up with that awful man?”
“Dad’s fault,” Meg managed. “Spencer Skipjack is a celebrity worshiper, and I was the closest he could get to the mighty Jake.”
“You have no idea how much I want to rip that bastard apart,” the mighty Jake said.
That was a scary thought, considering her father was a Vietnam vet, and what he hadn’t learned in the Mekong Delta, he’d picked up making movies involving every form of weaponry from samurai swords to AK-47s.
Her mother made a vague gesture toward her state-of-the-art phone. “I’ve already started digging. I haven’t uncovered anything yet, but I will. A snake like that always leaves a slimy trail.”
Their anger didn’t surprise her, but where was their disappointment at having witnessed their oldest child once again at the center of a mess?
Her father returned to pacing the carpet. “He’s not going to get away with this.”
“It’s only a matter of time before his sins catch up with him,” her mother said.
They didn’t understand the implications of what they’d witnessed. They didn’t have a clue how important the golf resort was to the town or the part Meg had played in destroying that promise. All they’d seen was a slimeball insulting their beloved daughter, and a gallant younger man avenging her honor. Meg had been given a gift from heaven. Not even Dallie and Francesca seemed to have enlightened them on the drive back to the inn. If she got her parents out of town quickly enough, they’d never hear about the part she’d played in all of this.
And then she remembered the words she’d spoken to Haley . . . how you act in the next few minutes will dictate the person you’re going to be from now on.
Her circumstances were different from Haley’s, but the underlying truth remained the same. What kind of person did she want to be?
An odd sense of—not peace, because there’d be no peace for her, not for a very long time. More a sense of rightness came over her. The experiences of the past three months had torn away the fabrications she’d shrouded herself in. She’d been so convinced she could never live up to the accomplishments of the rest of her family that she hadn’t made a fair attempt at anything except nurturing her role as the family gadabout. If she’d ever risked building something for herself, she would also have risked failing in their eyes. By not risking anything, she couldn’t set herself up for failure. That’s what she’d believed, so that, in the end, she’d been left with nothing.
It was time she claimed the woman she wanted to be—a person willing to walk her own path in her own way without worrying how others judged her success or her failure, including those she loved. She needed to create her own vision of what she wanted her life to be and follow it to the end. She couldn’t do that by hiding.
“Here’s the thing . . .” she said. “What happened today . . . It’s a little more complicated than it might seem.”
“It seems pretty straightforward to me,” her father said. “The guy’s a pompous jerk.”
“True. Unfortunately, that’s not all he is . . .”
She told them everything, starting with the day she’d arrived. Halfway through her story, her father attacked the minibar, and a few minutes later, her mother joined him, but Meg kept going. She told them everything except how deeply she’d fallen in love with Ted. That was her story alone to sort out.
When she got to the end, she was standing by the window, her back to City Hall, while her parents sat side by side on the low couch. She made herself keep her chin up. “So you see, it’s because of me that Ted lost his temper for the only time in his adult life and got in that fight. It’s because of me that the town is going to lose millions of dollars of revenue and all those jobs.”
Her parents exchanged long looks, full of meaning to each other but incomprehensible to her. They’d always communicated like this. Maybe that’s why neither she nor her brothers were married. They wanted what their parents had and weren’t willing to settle for less.
Ironically, that’s what she’d started to believe she had with Ted. They’d gotten really good at reading each other’s minds. Too bad she hadn’t picked up on what she’d most needed to know about him. How much he loved Lucy.
Her father rose from the couch. “Let me get this straight . . . You kept Lucy from potentially destroying her life by marrying the wrong man. You supported yours
elf in a town full of nutty people hell-bent on making you the scapegoat for all their troubles. You weren’t really the activities coordinator at that country club, but you worked hard at the job you did have. And you also managed to start your own small business on the side. Do I have that right?”
Her mother lifted one magnificent eyebrow. “You’ve forgotten to mention how long she was able to hold off that perverted blowhard.”
“Yet she’s the one who’s apologizing?” Her father turned it into a question, and the Glitter Baby’s famous gold-flecked eyes bored into her daughter’s.
